David Samson, an ally of Gov. Chris Christie, resigned last week as chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. / AP file photo

Written by

Bob Jordan

Gannett Statehouse Bureau

Internal summary

“We recommend that a Bi-State Commission consider fundamentally restructuring the Port Authority in a manner that would resolve the core friction inherent in an organization run by two constituents — New York and New Jersey — that often have divergent goals and objectives. The lane realignment has highlighted the magnitude of this discord.” — From the Christie administration’s internal investigation of the George Washington Bridge lane closures

At a glance

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey invests billions of dollars in infrastructure each year in the two states. Its operations include: • Five airports, including Newark Liberty International Airport. • Six tunnels and bridges between New York and New Jersey, including the Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge. • The World Trade Center. • The PATH commuter rail transit system. • The Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

More

ADVERTISEMENT

TRENTON — Chris Christie’s critics say he is the last one who should oversee reforms at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the wake of the George Washington Bridge scandal that involved the governor’s political associates.

But the embattled Republican governor insists he wants to take the lead on shaking up the bistate authority, possibly by splitting it into separate New Jersey and New York divisions so each state has primary responsibility for completing projects within its jurisdiction.

“I’m particularly intrigued by the idea of dismantling the Port Authority operations from under one roof to two,” Christie said.

Transportation experts said splitting the authority into separate entities has endless unknowns. Would there be toll booths at both ends of the Hudson River crossings? Could New Jersey afford to make fixes of its crumbling transportation infrastructure without cost sharing from New York? Which state gets assigned the lion’s share of the authority’s current debt of roughly $22 billion?

“I think it’s a very bad idea,” said Martin Robins, director emeritus of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University and a former Port Authority board member.

“It sounds like a study commission would be formed, but they’ve already come to the conclusion of what the commission will decide,” Robins said. “The two states do have different interests and sometimes conflicts, but they’re resolvable. I think the first order of business is to figure out how to restore the Port Authority to being an entity that functioned well for many years until failings in recent years.”

Robins said Christie is a culprit in the problems at the Port Authority and so is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose press office did not respond to a request for comment.

Christie loyalists have prospered through their Port Authority connections, none more than departing authority Chairman David Samson. Samson resigned under fire last week from his leadership post at the authority, which has an $8.2 billion annual budget.

(Page 2 of 2)

Samson had drawn heavy criticism for alleged conflicts of interest, including on his 2011 vote to have the Port Authority embark on a $256 million reconstruction of a PATH station in Harrison, even though his law firm represented the developer of nearby luxury apartments that stood to gain in value from the station improvements.

Samson, one of the key names in the George Washington Bridge scandal, and the law firm he founded, Wolff & Samson of Roseland, along with its lobbying affiliate, Wolff & Samson Public Affairs LLC, earned millions of dollars from government connections in the Christie era, public records show.

Transportation advocate Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said, “We’re all for reforming the culture of the authority, but it was created as a bistate entity so it could hover above political activity. There have been good projects created over the years. Bifurcating the Port Authority would seem to go against trying to keep their activities depoliticized.”

Lead attorney Randy Mastro, whose law firm has billed the state more than $1 million to perform the investigation authorized by Christie, concluded there is “not a shred of evidence” that Christie was involved in the scandal, and critics called the report an expensive whitewash.

Mastro included in the report a section focused on ways to perform “a fundamental restructuring of the Port Authority,” and Christie on Friday said, “I think that the idea of splitting the Port Authority into two may have some real merit to it. I’ve only been thinking about this for the last 24 hours, so I don’t want to jump to conclusions. But I think it certainly has merit to consider and something that I’m sure will be a part of a lot of conversations that I’ll have with our friends in New York over the course of the coming weeks.”

However, Christie in 2012 vetoed a reform bill that would have increased transparency at the Port Authority, an action that makes his new proposal suspect, said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-37.

Christie at the time argued that the reforms should apply to all state agencies, not just the Port Authority.

“This is the governor who vetoed our transparency bill for the Port Authority,” Weinberg said. “This is the governor who also vetoed a bill calling for hospital transparency. There’s a history here for people to examine. If the governor needed a very expensive lawyer to come and tell him we need transparency, I would have told him that for free. I’ve been telling him that for the last four years and I haven’t charged him for it.”

You will automatically receive the TheDailyJournal.com Top 5 daily email newsletter. If you don't want to receive this newsletter, you can change your newsletter selections in your account preferences.